Preparations

After Gray and Yurika finally got out of the bed for the day, it was almost noon. Gray hurried over to Major Valen's office as he had asked to see him earlier.

Gray knocked on Major Valen's door and didn't hear any reply.

"Hmm, must be out at the moment." Gray thought to himself.

Remembering that he still had Major Valen's bank card, he pulled it out to look at it to make sure he was still carrying it. Gray looked at the name on the card and thought he had the wrong card.

"Wait, didn't he say his first name was Gene?" Gray suddenly started giggling. "Eugene!! HAAA HAA! His name is Eugene! No wonder he goes by Gene! Oh crap, I gotta tell everyone about this!"

Gray suddenly felt murderous intent coming from behind him as he heard the wind breeze on his cheek as something flew next to his head. Gray looked to the same side he felt the slight breeze from and saw the metal lip of a clipboard embedded in the wall right next to Gray's head with the clipboard sticking straight out.

Major Valen walked over to Gray sternly while still emanating killing intent and said "You have something of mine Corporal Wilhelm?"

Gray gulped and then stammered out "S-Sir! Y-Yes sir! You left your card at the-"

Before Gray could finish that sentence, he saw a large hand reach for the card in his hand and take it out forcefully.

"Thank you Corporal, I had left it at the canteen so I appreciate you returning it to me."

Gray didn't dare to move and froze in place as Major Valen started to walk by him to get into his office he put his hand on Gray's shoulder and whispered to Gray "It's best if nobody knows we met up at that mixer, less drama… and regarding the name on the card, you better forget about it, I know where you sleep."

Once Major Valen took his hand off of Gray's shoulder, Gray finally found the courage to turn and ask "Sir, you wanted to see me for something else?"

Major Valen stopped and appeared to be considering something and said "Yes, if you have a minute corporal, I have something I'd like to talk to you about."

Major Valen unlocked the door to his office, opened the door and motioned for Gray to go in first. Gray walked in and sat down in the chair across from Major Valen's desk, then Major Valen shut the door and sat down at his desk with a slightly troubled expression on his face.

Major Valen folded his hands together, gathered his thoughts and said "Corporal Wilhelm… about last night…"

Gray suddenly waved his hands "Sir! That was all a misunderstanding! I never kidnapped Yurika! I'm not going to press charges either because her dorm mates did the right thing coming to find her, even if they were a bit excessive with the force."

"Let me finish son, I'm not here about that, nobody is in trouble for that either as nobody technically did anything wrong."

Gray wanted to mention that he felt like he was shocked enough to the point of being sterile, but figured no good would come of it. "Sir, sorry sir, please continue."

"About Miss Peters, how much do you know about her?"

"Not too much sir, we only worked together and only accidentally met up once outside of work."

"Accidentally?"

"Yes, we happened to run into each other and went for a few drinks together, nothing more than that."

"Ah, so it wasn't a date." Major Valen seemed a little relieved at that reply. "So what can you tell me about her?"

"Didn't you two talk at all after you left?"

"Well, we ummm…"

Gray panicked and interrupted Major Valen "Oh god please don't say it!"

"Shut up idiot! We didn't do THAT! I… was so nervous I could hardly contribute at all to our conversation, if one could even call it a conversation!"

Gray laughed at this because normally everyone else is intimidated by Major Valen.

"Shut up! I'm terrible with women I am attracted to as I can never put more than two words together to make a sentence. How do you deal with it?"

"Me? I'm terrible too!" Gray said honestly.

"Seriously? You seemed very calm at the mixer. I've been less nervous while taking live gunfire than trying to talk to Miss Peters."

"Well, I can't I know her very well, but she appears to be a very honest woman and already know what she wants, just be yourself."

"That's so lame, that's what everybody always says, 'Be yourself' my ass!"

"Speaking of which, do those 3 girls think you are a player?"

"Yes, I told her that I was in the military in a different city and was a player as well…"

Gray frowned slightly "Hmmm, not a good start, but considering the circumstances I guess lying about that is the only way. How the heck did you even get invited to that?"

"Your pal Geoff, he said he needed another guy for a mixer, and I may have been in earshot when I overheard him mention this. I offered him 100 merits and he agreed…"

"Wait, so you bribed Geoff to invite you to a mixer?"

"I'm a man and I have emotions to, you young'uns will understand in a few years! You'd have done the same thing as me!"

"How old are you anyways, sir?"

"42"

Gray was a little taken aback as he was about to call bullshit on him, but he realized he actually didn't know much about Major Valen. "Well, all I can say with her is that you need to be direct, nice, and confident. I don't know anything about her hobbies, but she seems to like the color purple and she always had a little cat charm on a charm bracelet."

"Not much to go with, but I do appreciate it Corporal Wilhelm… I mean… Gray."

"It kinda sounds creepy hearing you call me my first name, stick with family name and rank for now."

"That was the plan, Corporal Wilhelm. It sounded much worse to me hearing myself say it after all." Major Valen said with a grin.

"Want me to see what I can find out for you about Verona?"

"No… I mean, you can find out what she thinks of me, but that's it."

"How many merits for that information?"

"…Depends upon what she says."

"Works for me! I'll see what I can find out, but don't expect anything."

"That's fine Corporal, now get back to your team, I've been observing your progress and you've been doing well, but I feel like you're not willing to expand even further. Right now with 7 members you couldn't even be considered a squad, if you still plan on becoming a mercenary group, I recommend to have the bare minimum of a platoon of 16 members. Currently we only have 4 mech platoons in the military made up of 50 mechs each."

"Sir, given the scope of the Alterra Project, couldn't you have allocated more than just 200 pilots?"

"We tried, but the politicians feared if we controlled all of the strength we would stage a coup and remove them from power."

"Wow, did they really say that?"

"No, but it was heavily implied. I try to avoid politicians and anything political for that matter."

Gray was surprised hearing Major Valen backed down from someone. "That's… surprising for you, I thought you would just bash them over the head with a clipboard like you do the rest of us."

"A certain boisterous senator filed a restraining order against me so that's also why I have to avoid them sometimes…"

"That's more like what I was expecting."

"Yes, but since the opposing party was also present they kept it to just a restraining order instead of arresting me for assault."

"On that note… Thanks for the advice and I'll find out what I can for you."

"Good, now go get more men under your command, build up your experience, and I'll see you at the tournament in 2 weeks!"

"Tournament?"

"Read your damned messages!"

Gray left Major Valen's office and read his messages while heading over to the others on his team. "Tournament huh, could be fun, I guess no game wouldn't be complete without them."